How it Works

Brave Therapy is an innovative bio-psycho-social chronic pain rehabilitation approach based on the most current pain and psycho-social neuroscience and practice research. It is a program that empowers you to become an active participant in the problem solving, pacing, and decision making of your own treatment and recovery while learning to self-manage your pain.

The Brave Therapy program includes Living Brave groups and individual sessions designed to facilitate and support your success.

You will discover and learn:

The neuroscience and physiology of pain and why you hurt

How practicing self-care and self-compassion reduce pain

Strategies to inhibit pain and learn to move fear-free

How your sensory system works and can inhibit or increase your pain

How to grade and pace your activities to reduce your pain

Tips for energy conservation and improving sleep

Your personal pain triggers and inhibitors

Adaptive techniques to reduce pain with activities

Strategies for completing daily activities with less pain

How to develop a personal pain self-rehabilitation program

How to rebuild your life, restore your body, and renew your joy!

Current research confirms that chronic pain is influenced by three systems in each individual.

BIOLOGY - PSYCHOLOGY - SOCIOLOGY

The Three System Approach

The Brave Therapy approach is an integrated, graded, and highly individualized treatment plan that fills a gap in conventional pain treatment by targeting the influences of these three critical systems:

Physiological (body & brain)

Psychological (brain, thoughts, and emotions)

Social (engagement with people, environments and meaningful activities)

Assessments and therapy address all three systems and their influence on chronic pain. This type of comprehensive bio-psycho-social approach has been validated by research to be the most effective type of pain rehabilitation program as opposed to former traditional treatments that focused exclusively on the physical or psychological symptoms.

Linda also collaborates with other caring professionals, including counselors, massage therapists, yoga, movement, and dance instructors, personal trainers, physical therapists, physicians, acupuncturists, reflexologists, and others to help build a community of empathetic healing individuals for each client.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Occupational Therapy is an evidence-based, science-driven profession that strives to help individuals live life to the fullest. Occupational therapy helps people function in all of their environments (e.g., home, work, school, community) and addresses the physical, psychological, social, and cognitive aspects of their well-being.

Occupational Therapists believe that to be healthy and happy people must be able to participate in the activities and roles they want and need to do (occupations). Developing personalized life goals and strategies for creating a life balance between work, rest, and play are also integral components of the occupational therapy treatment process.

GRADED MOTOR IMAGERY

Graded Motor Imagery (GMI) offers a novel three stage synaptic exercise approach for neuropathic pain. As a bio-psycho-social treatment approach, GMI not only takes into account what has gone wrong in the body and brain (the 'bio') it also incorporates the influence of psychological and social variables.

GMI has been developed based on the current neuroscience of brain pathways, brain plasticity, mirror neurons, and knowledge from psychology and physical rehabilitation. Through a deep learning process of the physiology of chronic pain, the contextual influences on pain (time, place, emotion, knowledge), and individualized motor imagery treatments, GMI aims to alter pain sensitive networks in the brain for the achievement of significant pain reduction.

Graded Motor Imagery, in addition to treating other types of chronic pain, has been shown to be an effective treatment for the difficult-to-treat pain conditions of CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) and phantom limb pain. It is an approved treatment by the Colorado Division of Workman's Compensation for the treatment of CRPS.

THE DARING WAY™ and RISING STRONG™

It takes courage to heal from chronic pain, requiring a mental shift away from looking for quick physical fixes to embracing a slow, persistent process of self-discovery and guided skills training. It takes developing a courageous belief, not in pain treatments, but in our own ability to change our pain.

This belief is called self-efficacy. Self efficacy"reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one's own motivation, behavior, and social environment."

The development of low self-efficacy has been identified as a contributing factor in the chronic pain experience.

As a result of the many losses of independence, social engagement, and finances chronic pain sufferers experience, it can become increasingly difficult to believe in the ability to influence or control the healing process. Feelings of unworthiness, shame, and loneliness can become overwhelming.

Learning the skills to begin Living Brave with chronic pain is a vital part of the healing process and the both the Daring Way™ and Living Brave ™ curriculum provide a unique method to learn how to show up, be seen, and live brave as we re-write our pain stories.

Linda credits the psycho-social work of The Daring Way™ for contributing to her own recovery from chronic pain. As one of the first OT ‘s to pursue certification and the only certified facilitator to adapt and integrate Brené Brown's work for the treatment of chronic pain, she is honored to be able to share this life-changing coursework with her clients.

Research shows that Brave Therapy can work for you

According to research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), chronic pain self-management programs are highly successful:

"Individuals who participate in these programs have significantly increased their ability to cope with pain. They improve their ability to be active, healthy, and involved members of their communities."